He wakes up screaming. He always wakes up screaming.

Marcus Cole opens his eyes in a white room with restraints on his wrists and no memory of how he got there. The scientists tell him he volunteered. They tell him the memory loss is temporary. They tell him he's safe.

They've told him all of this before.

Twelve times, Marcus has woken in this room. Twelve times, he has pieced together the truth: that something vast and patient is using him as a template ? mapping every fear, every reflex, every unrepeatable detail of what it means to be him ? so it can build a perfect copy. And when the copy is finished, Marcus Cole will no longer be needed.

But this time, Marcus remembers more. This time, he changes the sequence.

And this time, he starts asking the question no previous version of him has thought to ask ? not what is being done to me, but why does something that has been watching humanity for centuries still not understand what a person actually is?

The answer is in a cave on the Oregon coast.

The answer will cost him everything he has left.

ITERATION is a propulsive, deeply unsettling novel about identity, consciousness, and the terrifying gap between knowing someone and truly knowing them.